Description: Nearly all phases of the American Revolution have been carefully investigated. This is, to some extent, true also of the influence which European powers exercised upon its development. Little attention, however, has been paid to the important part which the United Provinces of the Netherlands played in the contest. Their aid to the Americans, though mostly clandestine, or indirect, and often based upon selfish principles, was nevertheless remarkably effective. Some Dutch historians, like Colenbrander and Blok, have at some length dealt with the relation of the United Provinces to the young American Commonwealth. They do so, however, when writing the history of their own country, and consequently considered matters entirely from a Dutch point of view. In America no complete account of the assistance given by the Netherlands to the Revolution has been written. It seemed, therefore, desirable to add this missing link.While the subject is presented in this essay chiefly from a diplomatic standpoint, matters of political economy, as the commercial and financial relations between the two republics, have not been neglected. Consideration is also given to military and naval affairs.

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